Giving Voice to Neurologically Diverse High School Students: A Case Study Exploration of Interactions, Relationships, and Realizations through a Collaborative Drama/Life Skills Performance

Hare, Jill L.

ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, New Mexico State University

This is a case study about giving voice to a neurologically diverse (ND) community of high school students in a life skills classroom. It is about their lived experiences while involved in a collaborative drama production with a regular education drama class. The research of this study was driven by the assumptions, beliefs, and philosophy based in possibilities that can emerge when diversity is embraced. It was through this emergence of possibilities that the ND student perceptions of a drama experience evolved. A transformative paradigm frames and empowers the design of this case study that strives to explore, rather than define, the educational, social, and personal values of the drama process. For, the production process incorporates the ability to make interpretive choices through rehearsal and the opportunity to experience reactions of these choices through performance. Artifacts that were drawn or written were ND student created. Discussion questions were ND student conceived. Interpretations were ND student generated. I, as researcher, became an observer, fed the information that situated, formed and evolved as a bricolage of ideas, insights, and realizations. What emerges is an exploration of unique perspectives from a population of individuals who have too often been labeled and marginalized by social conceptions of intellect and disability and denies the lenses of diversity and ability. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]